The present invention relates generally to data communications. More particularly, the present invention relates to videoconference data relay servers.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional videoconference system 100 comprising a videoconference (VC) server 102 and a plurality of internal videoconference clients 104A-N that are engaged in one or more videoconferences and protected from a wide-area network (WAN) such as the Internet 106 by a firewall 108. Videoconference system 100 also includes one or more external videoconference clients 110 that are connected to Internet 106, but that are not protected by firewall 108.
It is often desirable to include one or more external videoconference clients 110 in a videoconference hosted by videoconference server 102 protected by firewall 108. One approach is to open firewall 108 in order to allow external videoconference clients 110 to connect to videoconference server 102. Of course this approach requires trusting external videoconference clients 110 with the consequent security risks such trust entails.